Brian Marick4d ago
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.” - Davis X Machina
Show threadQole 3d ago

@marick
I cannot locate the origin of this quote. But I can verify this quote by Lyndon B. Johnson:

"I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/

LBJ: 'If You Can Convince the Lowest White Man He's Better Than the Best Colored Man ...'

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who grew up in the South and understood the politics of racism from the inside, saw it in part as a ploy to divide and conquer.

Snopes
Show threadoffbyone3d ago

@qole @marick pretty sure it was a commenter on balloon-juice.com

got it back to 2009 without much effort (see also crazification factor)

https://balloon-juice.com/2009/10/07/open-thread-lagging-lexicon-indicators/

Balloon Juice - Open Thread: Lagging Lexicon Indicators

WordPress still won’t let me change so much as a misplaced comma in the Lexicon. Actually, WordPress is only allowing me to read the site about 60% of the time this week, just in case anybody thought the secondary front-pagers got some kind of special access. Either the Red State Trike Farce Strike Force is …

Balloon Juice
Show threadQole 3d ago
@offbyone @marick
That's a reference to the original, "by commenter Davis X. Machina," but the original seems to have been lost? The actual comment isn't linked?
Show threadoffbyone3d ago

@qole @marick agreed and that's annoying - I was (and still am!) lurking on BJ through those years and I remember the comment but doesn't seem to be linked anywhere. I'm going to poke around a bit

crazification factor is from 2005 so that limits it to 5 years or so of posts....

oh dear

this is going to be in some ways worse than that "exactly 2 propositions, an in group that the law protects but doesn't bind and an out-group who the law binds but does not protect" quote (mangled here for sure)

Show threadQole 
@offbyone @marick
This is often quoted by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic who refers to it as Wilhoit's Law.
https://x.com/doctorow/status/1876296096202547631
Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER (@doctorow) on X

This is Wilhoit's Law in action: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. https://t.co/xwoeNFK06P 36/

X (formerly Twitter)
Jun 7 at 3:25amWeb
Show threadsabik3d ago
@qole @offbyone @marick @pluralistic
Fun fact, Wilhoit's law was not formulated by Wilhoit but by another person of the same name
Show threadoffbyone3d ago

@sabik @qole @marick @pluralistic right?? well known poliitical scientist Francis (Frank) Wilhoit did not formulate Wilhoit's Law

It was a completely different Frank Wilhoit who did it, on Crooked Timber back in 2018

and this one I have found the cite for - original is here

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Slate did a piece on it as well.

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

#uspol #quote

The travesty of liberalism — Crooked Timber

Show threadCory Doctorow3d ago
@offbyone @sabik @qole @marick Yup, "Frank Wilhoit (But Not THAT Frank Wilhoit)'s Law"
Show threadZhi Zhu 🕸️2d ago

@sabik @qole @offbyone @marick @pluralistic

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it,
and there never has been."

~Frank Wilhoit, composer
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

#Conservatism #Law #Quote #Quotes #Meme #Memes #US #USA

Show threadQole 1d ago
@offbyone @marick @pluralistic
I don't really like this proverb, because I think conservatives think that the primary purpose of the law is to protect property, and it's not so much about protecting "in groups" as it is about protecting property (and its owners). As for the law binding, I think most people think the law is only partially binding on them. Most people I know regularly break one law or another, speeding or something, no matter how conservative or progressive they are.
Show threadBrian Marick18h ago

@qole @offbyone @pluralistic I personally believe that “conservatism is about maintaining supposedly-natural hierarchies” is more plausible than that conservatism is about property.

But the word is an “essentially contested concept,” which to me means definitional discussions have low expected value compared to action-oriented discussions.

https://blog.oddly-influenced.dev/2025/10/14/essentially-contested-concepts-a-catchy.html

Essentially contested concepts – a catchy idea without a catchy name

What does it mean to be a good Christian? How do you decide whether something someone made is art or not art? If you say you’re practicing Agile software development, and I say you’re not – that you’re missing the point – where do we go from there? The answer to the last question, in my experience, is: nowhere, and fast. But we don’t have that problem with questions like “is that tree an elm?” or “is light a particle or a wave?” Why not?

Show threadQole 15h ago
@marick
That article about essentially contested concepts is really interesting, thanks. And I agree that hierarchy, authority, and obedience is very important to conservatism. Lots of studies back it up, too. I think that I was focusing on fiscal conservatives, and their obsession with property.
Anyway, I really like the Davis quote, but not so much the Wilhoit one.
@offbyone @pluralistic